Health News

The United Kingdom's death toll from confirmed cases of COVID-19 rose by 351 to 36,393 as of 1600 GMT on May 21, the health ministry said.

The United States called on the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday to begin work immediately on investigating the source of the novel coronavirus, as well as its handling of the response to the pandemic.

African nations should use antibody tests to find out whether the slower spread and lower mortality rate of the new coronavirus on the continent is due to patchy data or a more resilient population, former British prime minister Tony Blair said on Friday.

The United States called on the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday to begin work immediately on investigating the source of the novel coronavirus, as well as its own handling of the response to the pandemic.

The city of Wuhan, the original epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak in China, conducted 1,000,729 nucleic acid tests on May 21, the local health authority said on Friday, compared with 887,321 tests a day earlier.

(This May 21 story clarifies that lockdown is entering ninth week, not eighth week)

The new coronavirus is believed to be spreading throughout Yemen where the health care system "has in effect collapsed", the United Nations said on Friday, appealing for urgent funding.

China's top leaders took the stage in front of a sea of masked delegates for the opening of parliament on Friday, the culmination of intensive planning at a time when gatherings around the world have been curtailed by the new coronavirus.

Here's what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 460 to 177,212, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Friday.

South Korean contract drugs manufacturer Samsung Biologics Co Ltd said on Friday it had signed a deal worth more than $231 million with GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) to supply biopharmaceutical products over the next eight years.

The United States has secured almost a third of the first 1 billion doses planned for AstraZeneca's experimental COVID-19 vaccine by pledging up to $1.2 billion, as world powers scramble for medicines to get their economies back to work.

Technology companies are developing their own contact tracing systems to help prevent coronavirus outbreaks in their offices as countries begin to ease lockdown measures and a return to the workplace is in the offing.

China recorded four new coronavirus cases on May 21, up from two a day earlier, the National Health Commission (NHC) reported on Friday.

Mexican health authorities on Thursday reported 2,973 more coronavirus cases, a daily record for new infections, bringing the country's total tally to 59,567 cases.

Fifty-nine migrants in Panamanian migration centers have tested positive for the coronavirus, a health official said, as thousands of migrants in the Central American nation wait to advance on their journey north.

The University of Alabama will require students and staff returning to its three campuses in the coming months to submit online health checks regularly and encourage them to download its contact tracing app, officials told Reuters on Thursday.

Brazil registered a record of 1,188 daily coronavirus deaths on Thursday, with more than 20,000 total fatalities from the coronavirus outbreak, the Health Ministry said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a sublingual film from Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc, a unit of Japan-based Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma , for the treatment of "off" episodes in patients with Parkinson's disease, the company said.

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro, a long-running advocate of malaria drug chloroquine to treat COVID-19, said on Thursday he knew there was no proof it works, but said there are cases in which it appears to have been successful.